


Brick by brick

by thelostsouls



Category: The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Bad Parent Maryse Lightwood, Bad Parent Robert Lightwood, Blood and Violence, Cop!Alec, Cop!Magnus, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt Alec, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-07-12 04:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15988100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelostsouls/pseuds/thelostsouls
Summary: Alec Lightwood is a homicide detective who gets paired up with a transfer cop after losing his partner. Blaming himself for his partner's death, he finds it difficult to open up to his new and eccentric partner, Magnus Bane. Can Magnus break down Alec's walls and help him to find happiness again? - ON HOLD





	1. Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Alec felt as if the ground had disappeared from under his feet. He could faintly hear the machines starting to beep as his breathing became labored and his heart rate spiked. He could see Izzy run out of the room and Jace trying to calm him down. But none of it registered, not really. How could Raj, his partner for the last five years, be dead while he was still alive?

###  Drowning 

Alec Lightwood felt like he was waking up under water.  
He heard muffled sounds coming from his right side. It sounded like there were people talking in hushed voices, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying.  
He tried moving his arm but a sharp pain radiating from his shoulder down to his lower back and all the way to his fingers made him lie completely still.  
He could feel a pressure on his chest and heard the rhythmic beeping of electronical devices all around him.  
He was so tired. He tried opening his eyes, but just the thought off moving his eyelids was too much.  
The hushed voices lulled him back to sleep. 

***

When he woke up next he had no idea how much time had passed. He could have slept for minutes, hours or even days.  
The hushed voices next to him weren’t there anymore, but he could still hear the beeping noises.  
He didn’t know where he was. What had happened? 

Last he remembered was that he had been sitting at his desk when his partner, Raj Bhandari, had ran inside and told him to gear up because they had a major break in their current case.  
Alec and Raj had both been working on the murder of a rich socialite, Maureen Brown, on the Upper East Side and had been stuck and searching for a new lead for two weeks now.  
The fact that it was a high profile murder didn’t help as the media broadcasted every step they took and, as the case turned colder, began questioning their methods of investigating and eventually their qualities as homicide detectives.  
The obvious suspects had all been cleared fairly soon in the investigation.  
Both the parents had been on vacation in Europe at the time of the murder. They provided the police with camera footage from their hotels and different restaurants they had visited, all of it time-stamped. They also provided a list of hotel employees, museum tour guides and other people who were witnesses to their whereabouts.  
Alec remembered he had found it difficult to understand that they had just provided the necessary information to clear them as murder suspects, but hadn’t come home to bury their youngest child.  
In hindsight, he himself didn’t have the best relationship with his own parents, so who was he to question their actions.  
  
Maureen’s older sister had been studying in the library on the NYU campus at the time of the murder and there had been at least twenty other students to back up her story.  
The grieving boyfriend had been Alec’s number one suspect, but even he had come forward with a perfect alibi that had checked out.  
After that, they were stuck.  
The victim had been a seventeen year old girl who seemed to have a perfect life: millionaire parents, a handsome and faithful boyfriend, lots of friends, perfect grades. They hadn’t found one shred of evidence she was involved in something dark or dangerous; no drug use, no ties to organized crime, no connections to any gangs.  
The only thing that suggested something was very wrong in her life, was the fact that she had turned up dead, strangled and dumped naked in a parking lot. 

Alec had been typing up the transcripts of the interviews they had done with the girl’s classmates when Raj had shown up.  
He had marched over to Alec’s desk with a determined grin on his face. “Gear up, Lightwood, you’re going to love me”, he had said. .  
Alec had blinked up at him and had smirked “Don’t you think you at least owe me a drink and dinner before we jump ahead to the loving?”. .  
Raj had looked at him with an amused expression “Oh please, it’s been what, six months since you last saw some action? I would just have to look at you the right way and your pants would drop.” .  
This was one of the reasons why Alec loved being partners with Raj. He never made a big deal about the fact that Alec was gay, something other members of the police force took offence to. .  
Raj’s expression had turned serious when he leaned over Alec’s desk. “I think I found a new lead in the case”. .  
Alec’s heart had started beating faster as adrenaline rushed his system. .  
They had been struggling to find a new lead for two weeks. “Oh my god are you serious? Tell me all about it”, he had said and sat up straighter, his undivided attention on his partner. .  
Raj had turned around a chair and straddled it backwards before launching into his story. .  
“So, you know how we cleared all of her classmates, friends and her boyfriend off our list of suspects”, he began. .  
Alec nodded and motioned for him to continue. .  
“Ok, so then we decided to see if she had any ties to the downworld; drugs, gangs and stuff. When we didn’t find anything we just assumed there was no connection there, but today I talked to her friends again and one of them mentioned that Maureen hadn’t been as faithful to her boyfriend as he was to her. She didn’t want to say something sooner because she was afraid that this news would add to the pain for her boyfriend after losing his girlfriend. She didn’t know the name of Maureen’s lover, but she did gave me a very detailed description on which our sketch artist was able to come up with a composite drawing”. .  
Raj held up a piece of paper with the sketch for Alec to see. .  
“Look familiar to you?”, he asked with a smile. .  
Alec looked at the sketch. A very familiar face stared back at him. “Sebastian Morgenstern, really?”, Alec gasped. . 

Sebastian Morgenstern was the son of Valentine Morgenstern, one of the most dangerous criminals of the last fifty years. .  
Apart from fraud and money laundering, Valentine was believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least twenty women, all prostitutes. .  
The NYPD had their hands full on trying to find out who was behind the murders, until Valentine had decided to go after an undercover agent posing as a prostitute. .  
He was currently locked away in a maximum security prison. .  
His son, Sebastian, had also been a suspect in the case, but there was never enough evidence tying him to the crimes. .  
Alec himself had interviewed Sebastian a couple of times and every time he had a feeling Sebastian was taunting him. .  
Sebastian liked to feel superior and knowing the police didn’t have enough evidence to actually charge him gave him a kick. .  
Alec hated the guy with a vengeance. 

“So, you feel like paying him a visit?”, Raj had asked.  
Alec had rolled his eyes at his partner. “Do you even have to ask, you should have just opened with that. ‘Hey Alec, Sebastian Morgenstern is somehow tied to this case’, was all I needed to get me into action”, Alec replied while standing up.  
He had put his gun in its holster strapped to his shoulder and had shrugged his jacket on.  
Together they had left the precinct to check out Sebastian’s last known address.  
And then what? Alec tried his best to come up with the rest of the story, but it was like his mind was fogged over at that point. He felt exhausted and let unconsciousness claim him once again. 

***

Alec tried opening his eyes when he woke up next.  
It took him several tries to get his eyelids to cooperate, but eventually he managed to pry one eye open. The other one, no matter how hard he tried, remained stubbornly closed.  
When he looked up, he could see a white ceiling. The lights had been turned down, but there still was some light in the room.  
Blinking a couple of times to give his eyes a moment to adjust to the light, Alec turned his head slightly to the left.  
He could see a white wall and some sort of machine with blinking lines. He assumed that’s where the beeping noises came from.  
He also made out a table loaded with all sorts of flowers.  
With a little effort he managed to turn his head to the right. This hurt considerably more than turning his head to the left. He also had to turn his head further because his right eye still refused to open.  
On his right side he saw two chairs.  
One of them was occupied by a stunning brunette with long black hair. Her eyes were currently closed as she was sleeping with her head leaned back against the wall, but Alec knew she had the most beautiful darkbrown eyes. He smiled a little as he looked at the sleeping form of his little sister, Isabelle.  
He frowned when he took in the dark circles she had under her eyes and her pale complexion. She looked as if she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days.  
The other chair was occupied by a man with golden hair. He was also sleeping, but he was still wearing his police badge and Alec could see a gun sticking out of his jacket.  
Jace wasn’t related to Alec by blood, but Alec thought of him as his brother in every other sense of the word.  
Just like Alec, Jace was a cop. He worked in the same precinct as Alec and would have been Alec’s number one choice for a partner.  
However, the captain, Luke Garroway, didn’t want them to team up because he thought them being so close would hamper their work.  
  
“Izzy, Jace”, Alec whispered.  
It was difficult for him to talk. His throat felt like he had swallowed sandpaper.  
He swallowed thickly and tried to talk a little bit louder.  
It hurt his chest when he tried to take a deeper breath and he started coughing.  
The sounds of his coughs woke Isabelle and Jace up.  
“Oh my god Alec! You’re awake”, Isabelle yelled.  
She ran out to get a doctor, while Jace came closer to the bed to try and calm Alec down enough so he could breath properly.  
Isabelle came back into the room, followed by a nurse and a doctor. The nurse started checking his vitals, while the doctor stood closer to Alec and started to shine a light in his eyes.  
“Hello Sir, could you please tell me where you are at this moment?”, he asked.  
“Hospital”, Alec mumbled hoarsely.  
“Could you state your full name and date of birth please?”, the doctor continued.  
“Alexander … Gideon … Lightwood … September 12th… 1989”, Alec managed to tell him. It still was difficult for him to breath properly and his vocal cords had apparently decided to stop obeying his orders.  
“What happened to me? Why am I here?”, Alec asked. From the corner of his eyes he could see Izzy and Jace making eye contact.  
  
“Well, Mr Lightwood, you were brought in here 5 days ago by EMT’s after they received a call for urgent medical support on a police investigation gone wrong.  
You had been shot multiple times and were unconscious at the time they brought you in. We were able to extract all the bullets from your body.  
As by miracle, they avoided damaging any major organs.  
We did have to put a chest tube in you because one of the bullets caused your lung to collapse.  
Another also grazed your humerus, which is in your upper arm, so at the moment your arm is in a cast.  
We removed an additional three bullets from your body, none of which did any major damage. The wounds they left behind are stitched up.  
You were in surgery for a total of seven hours, in which we also had to give you a lot of blood due to the amount you had already lost. After the surgery we kept you in a medically induced coma to give your body time to start healing properly. Early yesterday morning we started waking you up.”  
  
After the doctor finished, he told Alec to not hesitate if he, at any moment, felt any discomfort.  
He said he would be back later to go over the treatment for all his injuries with Alec and left the room.  
Alec’s head was reeling. How could he not remember being shot five times?  
Izzy and Jace came closer to his bed and both took one of his hands in their own.  
“Alec, you should really try to get some rest, okay? There’s plenty of time to talk about what happened, but right now the important thing is to get better. The doctor said it’s normal for people in your situation to not remember everything that happened. It’s your bodies way of protecting you from the trauma”, Izzy said to him.  
“The nurse installed a morphin drip for when you are in pain. She explained that the drugs will most likely knock you out, but rest and sleep are your best friends at the moment”, Jace continued.  
Alec looked at them both and had a feeling in his gut they didn’t tell him everything he needed to know. Call it his cop instinct, but they both looked guilty.  
“What aren’t you telling me?”, he asked them.  
Neither of them looked at him.  
Suddenly a thought entered his mind. He couldn’t believe he didn’t think about this sooner. “Wait, where’s Raj? If I was injured during a police investigation, he should have been there too right? Why isn’t he standing by my bedside to give me hell about having to do all the work on his own for a couple of weeks?”, Alec asked them.  
Izzy squeezed his hand and Alec saw her eyes were starting to fill with tears.  
“Alec, I…”, she started before a sob escaped her.  
“No…”, Alec whispered. He turned to Jace, willing him with his eyes to deny the conclusion he had just come to in his head. “Jace”, he breathed.  
Jace slowly shook his head. “I’m really sorry Alec, but according to the EMT’s who brought you here, Raj was dead upon arrival. He had been shot multiple times and bled out”, Jace told him.  
Alec felt as if the ground had disappeared from under his feet.  
He could faintly hear the machines starting to beep as his breathing became labored and his heart rate spiked.  
He could see Izzy run out of the room and Jace trying to calm him down.  
But none of it registered, not really. How could Raj, his partner for the last five years, be dead while he was still alive? Why couldn’t he remember what happened?  
Izzy came running back with a nurse who injected him with something from a syringe through the tube that was sticking in his hand. Immediately he felt his eyelids growing heavy and his mind started to shut down.  
The last thing he thought before he fell asleep was why he got to make it out alive and Raj didn’t. 

***

Alec groaned as he came back to consciousness.  
Izzy and Jace were gone from the room, but sitting in the chair next to his bed was his captain, Luke Garroway.  
When he noticed Alec was awake, he shuffled the chair closer to the bed. “How are you feeling Lightwood?”, Luke asked him.  
“Like I’ve been shot five times Captain”, Alec answered.  
Luke couldn’t help but chuckle a little at this reaction. “You gave us all quite a scare there”, he continued.  
Alec looked at him with pleading eyes, willing him to understand that Alec needed the details, needed to hear what had happened.  
“Please Sir… Please, I need to know what happened there. I need to know what happened to Raj. Why he is… And I’m…”.  
Alec’s breathing became harder as he tried to hold back sobs. He willed himself to stay strong in front of his captain, the favorite quote of his father flashing through his mind: ‘Emotions are nothing but a distraction’.  
Luke looked at him with eyes full of compassion. “I understand your need, Alec, I really do. But the truth is we don’t know what happened there ourselves.  
All I can tell you is that I approved of the mission you and Raj went on to interview Sebastian Morgenstern, if he indeed still lived at his last known address. You both left the station and twenty minutes later we got a call from someone saying they heard shots coming from one of the apartments in their building.  
We recognized the address as that which was listed as Sebastian’s last known address so we assumed there was something going wrong with you two”, Luke explained.  
He sighed and rubbed his face. “It was total chaos when we arrived at the apartment complex. Raj was lying on his side by the door in a pool of blood. I checked his pulse myself but couldn’t find any.  
The room was a total mess. Every piece of furniture was upturned, glass shards everywhere.  
We found Sebastian next. He was lying on his back, gun still in his hand. He’s dead Alec.  
I was sure you would be too. I mean, given the state of the other two, I couldn’t imagine someone surviving.  
One of the EMT’s who had come up with us found you in the kitchen.  
You were half lying, half sitting against the counter. I expected the worst when he checked your pulse, but as a miracle he told me you were still alive.  
They rushed you to the hospital while we stayed and examined the crime scene”, Luke told him.  
  
During Luke’s explanation Alec tried, really tried, to remember the events Luke was describing. He had been there, seen it, lived it. Why couldn’t his brain conjure up the memories?  
“We found pictures of Maureen Brown at his place, along with pictures of three other girls who turned out to have been missing for a period of time. Maureen was the first to have come from an affluent neighborhood”, Luke continued.  
Alec knew he should feel better knowing they had at least caught the killer and closed the case, but all he felt was emptiness and frustration towards himself.  
“I spoke to your doctor and he told me you can leave the hospital tomorrow”, Luke said.  
“Izzy and Jace are going to take turns helping you in your recovery.  
You are on leave for a month. After that you can come back to start with light chores, mostly paperwork, for another three weeks”, Luke explained.  
Alec didn’t care. He just nodded. Luke sighed and stood up. “Listen Alec, there is no use in blaming yourself or staying stuck on the details you can’t remember. You can’t bring him back by doing that”.  
Alec stubbornly refused to look at him.  
“I’m leaving now, you just get some rest okay? I’ll come visit you when I can”, Luke said while shrugging on his jacket.  
Alec remained staring at the ceiling until he heard the door close. He released the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding and let his tears roam free. 


	2. Existing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec stood outside the precinct.  
> Today was his first official day back on the force.  
> He looked up at the old building he had come to see as his second home.  
> It looked the same as it always did, but somehow it felt different to Alec. He shuffled his feet while he looked at the front doors through which he had walked countless times before.  
> For some reason he couldn’t make his feet move today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second chapter to this story. I don't actually know a lot about police work or medical stuff, so if any of the things I've written isn't correct I'm sorry!

###  Existing 

The funeral was one of the most difficult things Alec ever had to do.  
He couldn’t stand to be reminded all the time that he survived while Raj had died.  
It made him sick every time one of Raj’s family members came over to him to thank him for being such a great partner to Raj. For protecting him until the very end. For being a hero.  
He was disgusted with himself.

It was Jace’s turn to babysit Alec since he was also attending the funeral as a member of the precinct.  
Since he left the hospital thee days ago, he had the constant company of either Jace or Izzy. They treated him like he was made of glass. Yesterday he had to yell at Izzy to at least leave him alone to go to the bathroom.  
His injuries seemed to be healing according to plan.  
The day he left the hospital his doctor had given him a set of instructions.  
The chest tube had been removed and Alec just had to promise to avoid any strenuous activity for the next two weeks. Then he could start with light exercises and work his way up from that.  
The cast on his arm had to stay put for the next five weeks to allow the bone to set correctly. He had to watch out to not get it wet when he showered.  
The rest of his wounds had to be cleaned and redressed every day for ten days. After that they were healed enough to be just left like they were.  
According to Alec, those instructions didn’t require the constant presence of Jace and Izzy.  
In his opinion he was perfectly capable of looking after himself, but Jace and Izzy clearly didn’t agree with him.  
They had ignored all his protests and started waiting on him hand and foot. After two days Alec had finally accepted that he couldn’t get rid of them and just endured it. 

“Can we please go home now?”, Alec asked silently.  
He really didn’t like being here, where everyone constantly reminded him of the fact that he was still alive.  
Jace looked at him with concern. “Are you sure Alec? I mean, we can stay a little longer If you want to”.  
Alec closed his eyes and rubbed his face. “Jace, please, don’t make me have the same discussion again”, he whispered.  
Jace looked like he wanted to say something more, but he sighed and wrapped his arm around Alec’s shoulders. Together they left the cemetery. 

For the past two days Izzy and Jace had tried to talk to Alec about what had happened.  
They were hellbent on making sure he knew it was not his fault that Raj had died.  
It had become some sort of mantra for them to follow him around the house with. When he woke up, they were there. When he came back from his physical therapy, they were there. When he ate lunch, when he took a nap, when he wanted to take a bath. They. Were. Always. There.  
Alec knew they only did it because they cared for him and they were worried about him, but right now he really couldn’t handle them on top of everything else.  
Cognitively he knew it really wasn’t his fault that Raj had died though. He only had problems convincing himself about that.  
A day after he woke up in the hospital his memories of the events had started to return so he remembered he did nothing wrong.  
When they had arrived at Sebastian’s home, they had done everything according to police procedures.  
Raj had been the one that knocked on the door and had announced they were with the New York Police Department and had a few questions for Mister Sebastian Morgenstern.  
They had heard footsteps in the apartment, but neither of them had been prepared for the attack as soon as the door opened.  
Sebastian had opened fire on them the moment he opened the door. Raj had been directly in his line of fire and since they were there to just ask questions, they weren’t wearing a bulletproof vest. Alec had seen him go down.  
He had willed his emotions to stay at bay because he knew that if he broke down then, he would die.  
Alec had ducked inside the apartment and around Sebastian, trying and failing to dodge the bullets from his gun.  
He had returned fire with his own gun and Sebastian had gone down.  
Alec hadn’t immediately realized he was hit until he noticed he had difficulty breathing. When he looked down he saw blood gushing from several entry wounds and his knees had buckled beneath him.  
He had crawled towards the kitchen counter because he had hoped to find some first aid supplies there, but he didn’t have enough strength left to actually search for them.  
In the end he had just propped himself up against the counter. He had known then Raj was dead. It was his last thought before the loss of blood and the shock had taken over and he had lost consciousness. 

Jace and Alec walked through the front door of Alec’s apartment.  
“So, what do you want to do Alec?”, Jace asked.  
That was another of their tactics; trying to keep Alec as busy as possible.  
“I really don’t feel like doing anything right now Jace”, Alec answered. He took off his jacket and threw it over the back of a chair.  
He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water, which he gulped down almost entirely.  
Avoiding Jace’s gaze, he dropped himself on the sofa and turned on the tv.  
He didn’t actually want to watch tv, but it was a solid way of keeping Jace of his back.  
Jace came to sit next to him on the couch. Alec was sure he would start badgering to talk about what had happened, but he remained silent, letting Alec to his thoughts. 

After about half an hour, Izzy let herself in with the spare key Alec had given her when he had moved in the apartment eight years ago.  
“Hey Alec”, she greeted him with a soft smile. “Hi Iz”, Alec replied without looking at her.  
Izzy went to sit in the armchair next to the couch.  
He could see from the corner of his eyes Jace and Izzy were having some sort of a wordless discussion with each other.  
After a minute Jace sighed and turned towards Alec. “Look Alec, we need to talk to you”, he began.  
Alec closed his eyes for two seconds and turned off the tv. If they were this serious about talking, they wouldn’t stop until they said what they wanted to say so it was better if he cooperated from the start.  
“Me and Izzy, we’re worried about you. We don’t know how to help you get through this, so we would like it if you would speak to a professional about this”, Jace continued.  
Alec opened his mouth to say something, but Jace cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I know what you’re going to say, you don’t need to talk to a shrink about this, you’re fine on your own, we need to stop worrying. But we can’t and I’m sorry but you don’t have a say in this. I already booked you an appointment with Catarina tomorrow morning and you’re going”.  
Alec opened his mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with something to say.  
He didn’t know how to feel about what they did.  
He wanted to feel angry because they had violated his privacy and made an appointment without asking him first. The rage that had been boiling under the surface for the last week was simmering.  
But on the other hand, he knew that if he became angry at them right then, he would hurt them and in an attempt to make things right he’d end up going to the appointment after all.  
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. When he wasn’t feeling angry, he really wasn’t feeling anything lately. Maybe Catarina could help him with that.  
He knew her a couple of years already and had talked with her about a couple of difficult situations he had endured over his years on the force.  
“Fine”, he managed to say at last.  
Izzy and Jace both huffed out a breath and relaxed a little bit. Alec could tell by the way their shoulders slumped, they had been prepared for an angry outburst.  
Izzy came over to him and hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry for doing this to you big brother, but we’re both really worried about you. It would kill me if something happened to you and I just want to see you happy again”, she said.  
Alec hugged her back. “It’s okay Iz”, he said while rubbing small circles on her back.

**Five weeks later ******

Alec stood outside the precinct.  
Today was his first official day back on the force.  
He looked up at the old building he had come to see as his second home.  
It looked the same as it always did, but somehow it felt different to Alec. He shuffled his feet while he looked at the front doors through which he had walked countless times before.  
For some reason he couldn’t make his feet move today.  
He dreaded the looks he would get.  
He dreaded the words of support the others would try to give him.  
And most of all he dreaded the meeting Luke had informed him would take place today.  
Alec knew that was the moment Luke would assign him his new partner. The only hope he had was that Luke would finally allow him to partner up with Jace.  
He thought he stood a good chance of that happening since Jace’s former partner, Victor Aldertree, had retired two weeks ago. 

Alec took a few deep breaths before heading inside.  
When he entered the workspace, the first thing his eyes were drawn to was his desk.  
It looked the same and still so vastly different to Alec.  
Someone, who Alec suspected to be Jace, had cleared everything related to the Maureen Brown murder from his desk and the wall surrounding it. Everything else on his desk was neatly organized and in the middle of it stood a giant bouquet of flowers with a ‘welcome back’ card attached to it.  
The contrast with what used to be Raj’s desk couldn’t be bigger.  
Raj’s desk was cleaned of every personal item there had been on six weeks ago. The only things remaining were the standard notebooks and pens handed out by the precinct.  
Alec swallowed past the lump in his throat, trying not to think back to all the times he and Raj had been sitting at those desks, whether they were typing up reports, bouncing ideas of each other or just joking around.  
  
Even though he had been making progress during his appointments with Catarina, he could feel the already well-known sense of guilt creeping up inside of him.  
After the first appointment set up by Jace and Izzy, Catarina had convinced him to see her two to three times every week.  
She was convinced he was suffering from survivor’s guilt on top of the grief from losing his partner. With her help, Alec had learned to forgive himself for the events that took place the day Raj had died, but every once in a while those feelings would surge back up.  
Catarina also had the habit of trying to pry deeper into the layers of Alec’s past, a topic he was not comfortable talking about. Every time she would bring up his past, Alec would stop talking until she brought the topic back to safer grounds.  
Maybe some day he would be ready to talk about his past, but not now. 

Exhaling a shaky breath, Alec walked over to his desk and started up his computer.  
Giving he didn’t have any active cases, he couldn’t really immerse himself into his work, so he settled for checking his work e-mail.  
There were a couple of mails from the ME’s office containing the reports on the three other victims Sebastian Morgenstern had made, a report detailing the events from the day Alec had been injured and a report from Luke about the completion of the Maureen Brown case.  
There was also an e-mail from Luke to the entire team in which he invited everyone to the meeting that would take place today at 9 AM.  
After reading up on the reports, he glanced at the clock and saw it was nearing 9.  
He stood up and made his way to the break room to grab a coffee, if you could name what they had at the precinct coffee.  
As he passed the other desks, he nodded to his co-workers. He noticed they all looked at him with a mix of pity and compassion in their eyes which made his insides curl.  
Some of them tried to make conversation with him, but Alec really didn’t know how to answer their questions on how he was doing.  
He felt relieved when he entered the break room and saw Jace standing there with his coffee mug in his hand. It read _‘Police Officer, because badass motherfucker isn’t an official term’ _and it had been a gift from Alec when Jace had graduated from the academy a year after him.__  
Alec took his own coffee mug with _‘Better gay than grumpy’ _printed on the side.__  
He had gotten the mug as a gift from the team after he had told them about his sexuality.  
“Ready for today?”, Jace asked him as he poured coffee in his mug.  
Alec took a sip and scrunched up his nose at the taste. They really should invest in a decent coffee machine, he thought.  
“Yeah sure, about as ready as I can be I guess”, Alec answered. “You think Luke will partner us up?”, he asked Jace.  
“I guess so”, Jace said “I mean, he doesn’t really have much other choice right? We’re the only two in here without a partner”.  
They exited the break room together and made their way to one of the meeting rooms in the precinct.  
  
Most of the team was already there and they were chatting amongst themselves.  
“Hey Alec! Welcome back man!”, Mark Blackthorn said when he saw Alec.  
Alec smiled in response.  
He always liked Mark because he seemed to understand Alec wasn't really a social butterfly. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to other people, it was just he often didn't know what to say or how to start up a conversation. Others llooked at him funny for being like that, but Mark had always been genually nice to him.  
“It’s good to be back. I was going stir crazy sitting at home”, Alec told him.  
“No kidding, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I had to stay at home for six weeks”, Mark said.  
Alec was really grateful to Mark he didn’t bring up Raj or asked how Alec was feeling.

Just as Mark was about to say something else, Luke walked into the room followed by two people Alec had never seen.  
One of them was a woman with her blond hair tied back in a braid. She had a very no-nonsense attitude as she let her eyes roam over everyone in the room.  
The other one was a man who seemed very exited to be there. He smiled at several people in the room and looked around enthusiastically.  
Besides their difference in attitude, they couldn’t have been more different in the way they looked. The woman oozed professionalism, dressed to the nines in a dark grey suit. The man on the other hand looked, Alec really didn’t have another word for it, _glittery _. He wore tight black jeans and a shimmering blue shirt.__  
Alec looked closer and he could see the man had his eyes lined in black kohl and he saw blue eyeshadow, which matched the color of his shirt. His hair was slicked up and streaked with the same blue. All over his hair and face, Alec could detect traces of glitter.  
When his eyes locked with Alec across the room, he winked at him.  
Alec just stared back at him, not knowing what to make of this whole situation.  
“Did he just, uhm, wink at you?”, Jace asked incredulously.  
Alec looked at Jace who was also staring at the man. “Yeah, I guess so. Who do you think they are? “, he asked.  
“Don’t know”, Jace answered. “Maybe they’re from the FBI or something and they’re here to help us with a case?”.  
Alec looked at the two people who were now talking quietly with Luke. “Her, I can picture with the FBI. Him? Not so much”, Alec said.  
At that moment Luke turned towards the room and asked for silence.  
“Allright, good morning everyone. Before we start the meeting I would like to officially welcome back Detective Lightwood after his absence the past six weeks. Alec, welcome back, if there is anything you need don’t hesitate to ask”, Luke started. Everyone in the room applauded. Alec saw several people smile at him and nodded his head in Luke’s direction as a silent thank you.  
“Now, I know you are all probably very interested in the people I’ve brought with me today, so I wont keep you in suspense any longer. Please help me in welcoming to our precinct Detective Lydia Branwell and Detective Magnus Bane, who will be joining us as from today. They both have been transferred here from the Brooklynn Police Department”.  
Alec felt a sense of dread creeping up when he heard they would be joining the police department and were not just visiting or assisting on a case.  
He felt his stomach sink at Luke’s next words. “As you all know, Detective Aldertree has retired two weeks ago, which leaves Detective Herondale without a partner. As Detective Lightwood is also in need of a new partner, Detective Branwell will be partnered up with Detective Herondale and Detective Bane with Detective Lightwood. I’m sure you will both do your best to make them feel at home”, Luke continued.  
Alec saw Jace exchange a nod with his new partner.  
He looked up to the front of the room and saw that the glittery man was looking at him expectantly.  
He inwardly groaned. Why couldn’t Luke just partner him up with Jace like they both had been asking him to do so for years.  
Alec tuned out the rest of Luke’s speech about the ongoing cases. He felt a headache coming up and it was only his first day back. 

_____ _

After the meeting everyone returned to their desks to continue their work.  
Alec walked back to his own desk as Luke headed over to him, Detective Bane following close behind.  
“Lightwood, I just received a call about a murder victim. I want you and Bane to take this case. He has a couple of years’ experience in homicide so you shouldn’t have to many explaining to do.”  
Alec nodded and took the file Luke was holding in his hands.  
With a nod to both Alec and Detective Bane, Luke returned to his own office on the other side of the room.  
“So….”, Detective Bane said. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Magnus Bane. You just call me Magnus, I’m not really a fan of calling each other by our last names”.  
He offered his hand to Alec, smiling encouragingly.  
Alec looked from his hand to his face and stood.  
“Right, we have a crime scene to get to”, he said and packed up his things before heading out the door.  
“You coming with or what?”, he asked over his shoulder when he noticed Detective Bane – no _Magnus _, was still standing by his desk.  
Magnus smirked and followed Alec out. “Playing hard to get I see, I like a challenge”, Magnus said to himself. __


	3. Reminiscing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec and Magnus go to their first crime scene together.  
> Izzy and Jace drag Alec to a club to celebrate his first day back. Izzy meets up with Clary, a friend from college, who happens to be celebrating Magnus's first day at his new job there too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, thank you for reading the first two chapters of this story so far! I really appreciate the comments.

###  Reminiscing 

The body was lying on a hotel bed in one of the more upstanding hotels of the city. He was posed, Alec could tell that much. He was placed on his back, with his hands folded over his chest almost like he was praying. His killer had placed a blindfold over his eyes. If it weren’t for the obvious ligature marks on his neck, it almost looked like he was sleeping.  
Alec stood on the side of the room, watching as the members of the CSI team gathered all the necessary evidence. He had seen a lot of death during his years as a homicide detective, but cases like these always gripped him harder. The victim was only 14 and cases involving children always left a bad taste in Alec’s mouth. A life cut short was always a waste in Alec’s eyes, but this victim had his whole life in front of him, could have done so many great things and now someone else had decided that he couldn’t anymore.  
It was also impossible for Alec to not think about his little brother when he had to work a case involving a child. 

Max had been Alec’s pride and joy.  
Since his parents were always busy with their own careers, Alec had practically raised Max by himself. Being only 14 when Max had been born, taking care of a baby wasn’t really something Alec had envisioned himself doing, but once he had laid eyes on Max he had vowed to keep him safe and protected. Besides, he already looked out for Jace and Izzy as well, so one more wasn’t that much of an inconvenience. Alec had scheduled his own activities to be able to take care of Max, something his parents had never thanked him for.  
Max had been the first person to know Alec was gay. When he was 20, Alec had been secretly dating a guy he knew from the gym. Max was six years old at the time and wanted to do nothing more than follow his older brother around all the time. One day, Max had been at the gym with Alec when his boyfriend had entered and had kissed Alec full on the mouth in front of Max. Alec had been shocked and had looked at Max tentatively to gauge his reaction. Max had just blinked at Alec and had asked if Alec would be kissing him the entire time like Izzy did with her boyfriends. After reassuring him that that wasn’t Alec’s plan, Max had been relieved because, in his words, kissing was yucky. He had picked up his comic book and started reading again. Alec had made him promise not to tell their parents and as far as Alec knew, Max had kept his promise.  
It hadn’t worked out with the guy from the gym because he kept demanding that Alec came out to his parents, something Alec wasn’t ready for at that time.  
When he was 22, he moved out of his parent’s house. Being on his own for the first time, brought with it a lot of freedom. Alec learned to be his true self more and decided it was time to come out. He had practiced what he was going to say thousands of time in his head, but when the weekly mandatory family diner came around, his nerves had made him just blurt out “I’m gay” in the middle of conversation.  
He didn’t know what he had expected, but he hadn’t been prepared for what had happened.  
Izzy and Jace had both been happy for him, smiling when he blurted out his news. Later they had both told him they had already had their suspicions but never questioned him about it, trusting he would tell them himself when he felt ready.  
His parents however had been a totally different story. His dad had been in the middle of cutting a piece from his steak. When Alec came out, he had frozen with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth. “What did you say?”, he had asked in a clipped tone. Alec had cleared his throat and said “Mom, dad, I’m gay. I’m sorry for keeping this a secret for this long, but now I finally feel like it’s the right time to tell you”.  
Alec had watched his father’s face go from shock to disgust and anger. “No son of mine is gay!”, he had yelled while standing up. He had loomed over Alec and had demanded he stopped this nonsense this second and got himself a wife so he could make the Lightwood name proud. Alec had just blinked and looked to his mother. “M-Mom?”, he had asked shakily. His mother didn’t even look at him. “Mom, please, I’m still me, I’m still the same Alec I always was”. He had felt tears prick in his eyes and his breathing had become ragged.  
Jace and Izzy had looked at their parents with a look of pure anger. “I can’t believe this!”, Izzy had yelled. “You’re going to turn your back on your own son?”. “Izzy, it’s fine”, Alec had whispered. “No Alec, it’s not fine!”, she had said. Her face had been twisted in an angry scowl when she had addressed their father. “And you, how can you be so bigoted? It isn’t the sixties anymore you know!”. Their father had looked at Isabelle with fury in his eyes. “Enough!”, he had roared. “Isabelle, I will not have you talking to me like that. You will go to your room right now. You too, Jonathan!”, he had said to Izzy and Jace. They had looked like they were going to protest, but when they had looked at Alec he had pleaded them with their eyes to just listen to their father. Grungily they had left the table. 

Once Jace and Izzy had left and gone to their room, his father had looked at Alec with a stony face. “Listen Alec, I will not have a son of mine be known as gay. You are the eldest of the children, it is your responsibility to uphold the Lightwood name. Now, this – this phase or whatever it is you’re going through, it has to stop. Have you even considered what this would do to our careers? How your mother and I will be looked down upon when our business associates hear about this?”.  
Alec’s heart had sunk. He had taken a few deep breaths to calm himself and had told his dad that this in fact, was not a phase and it was who he was. He wasn’t about to chance himself. At that point Alec had still held some hope that if he explained himself, his parents would come around. That hope had disappeared rather quickly the next minute. His dad had looked at him and told him he was no longer welcome in their home, was no longer allowed to spent time with Max, until he had found himself a respectable young lady to marry and had come to his senses. His mother hadn’t looked up from her plate the entire time.  
Crushed, Alec had left his parent’s home and he hadn’t been back in the six years that followed. Jace and Izzy had been enraged and had moved out of their parent’s house the next week. Izzy had been studying at college and had been living in the dorms most of the time already. Jace had looked for an apartment with Alec while he finished his last year in the academy. They had promised they would help him see Max, but their parents had shipped Max of to boarding school in England. It was during his third year in England, when Alec had been 25, Max had died in a car accident. His parents had buried him in England and Alec had never had the chance to say goodbye. 

Alec was so lost in his own thoughts and memories, he nearly missed it when Magnus entered the hotel room.  
“Okay, so I went and questioned the hotel manager and the head of the – Are you all right?”, he stopped in the middle of his explanation to look at Alec with a worried look in his eyes. Alec blinked and tried to clear his head to focus on the case. “Um. Yeah, I- I’m fine. Just thinking”, he stuttered. Magnus didn’t look all that convinced. “Sure...”, he said while he looked at Alec through squinted eyes. “If you ever need to talk about, you know, all the thinking you’re doing, you know where to find me”, he said.  
Alec just nodded. He didn’t have any intention to share his past with Magnus but he figured that if he seemed to think about the invitation, Magnus would probably leave him alone faster. “You were saying?”, Alec asked. “Right, I went to question the hotel manager and the head of the household department to see if they noticed anything out of the ordinary. I also asked the manager to look up who had rented this room, but that came up empty. He asked the reception staff but they just remember a man in his late twenties to early thirties, Caucasian and mundane looking. Someone you wouldn’t look twice at if they passed you on the street. He came in around seven pm, asked for a single room and payed cash. No credit card used for room service either. He didn’t make a reservation beforehand. He did check in the guest register, but he used the name John Smith so I’m guessing it’s a fake ID. Just in case, I’ll check it when we get back to the station but I’m not putting much money on it”, Magnus recounted.  
“What have you got in here?”, he asked Alec. “The victim’s name is Kyle Peters, age 14. The address which is registered on his ID is somewhere in Manhattan. The ME finished his preliminary exam and it looks like the cause of death is strangulation. No signs of sexual assault. He’ll know more once he can examine the body further.”, Alec said.  
“Did CSI find any evidence as to who could have done this?”, Magnus asked. Alec rubbed his hands through his hair, making it even messier than it already was. “None”, Alec sighed, “At least none which are very obvious. They collected about a hundred finger prints, hairs, body fluids and other stuff I’d rather not think about, but we’ll have to wait for it all to get processed before we can do something with it”. Alec was frustrated there wasn’t more evidence to get started with. Magnus nodded and seemed every bit as frustrated with the waiting they had to do as Alec was himself.  
Magnus strolled around the room looking to see if they missed anything. When he bend over to check underneath the bed, Alec noticed how his shirt rode up a little bit so his back became exposed. Magnus had flawless caramel skin. ‘I wonder what it would feel like to run my fingers over it’, Alec thought, ‘Oh God where did that come from?’. Alec felt his mouth go dry as he let his eyes wander a little bit lower. He had to swallow hard when he noticed Magnus’s pants were tight enough to be drawn on and he definitely liked what he saw there. Magnus straightened back up and looked at Alec. Alec hurriedly looked away and tried to hide the blush that he knew was creeping up his face. From the smirk on Magnus’s face he could tell his ogling hadn’t been that subtle and Magnus had definitely saw him looking. “You know”, Magnus said as he sauntered over to where Alec was standing, “a picture lasts longer”. He stood in front of Alec and winked. Alec was pretty sure his heart was going to beat out of his chest. “I- I don’t know what you’re talking about”, he said and hurriedly left the hotel room. 

  
***  


At 8 pm Alec left the precinct and headed to the subway station to go home.  
It had been an exhausting first day. After they had examined the crime scene, they had to deliver the news to Kyle’s parents. Alec hated that part of his job. As usual he stuttered his way through the introductions and had seen the dread on the face of Kyle’s mother when he had said they were police officers. Probably sensing his unease, Magnus had taken over the conversation and had delivered the news that their son had been murdered. It was never easy seeing a parent react to the news their child was dead and wasn’t coming back home. Kyle’s father had broken down, sobbing and asking Alec and Magnus how it happened and if they could see him. The reaction of Kyle’s mother however, had struck Alec the hardest. She hadn’t reacted at all, but Alec almost felt like some part of her had died right there when they told her the news. Like every will to continue living had left her, together with her son. They had arranged a meeting with the ME the next day and Kyle’s parents had also agreed to an interview with them. 

Alec didn’t know what to think about Magnus as his new partner either. Magnus was different from anybody Alec had ever known and he both hated and loved how Magnus made him feel. It was confusing Alec and he had been relieved to be able to go home.  
He was mentally planning his relaxing evening in when he heard Jace call after him. “Alec, wait up!”  
When he turned he saw Jace was jogging towards him with his phone against his ear. “I’m on the phone with Izzy. She and Simon have plans to meet up at Pandemonium. You’re coming too right?”, Jace asked him.  
Alec rolled his eyes. Of course Jace and Izzy would find a way to ruin his quiet evening in. “I don’t know Jace”, Alec sighed, “I mean, I’m pretty beat and” Jace looked at Alec with his best puppy dog eyes and Alec could hear Izzy telling Jace that Alec couldn’t say no to this. “Come on Alec, we want to celebrate your first day back on the job, please?”, Jace pleaded. With another award-winning eyeroll Alec caved because he knew they would keep pestering him. “Yes great Alec! Iz, he’s coming!”, Jace yelled into his phone. Alec could hear Izzy’s load whoop and couldn’t help the smile that crept on his face. Even though they could be quite the pain in his ass, he couldn’t imagine his life without them. 

Half an hour later Alec and Jace entered Pandemonium and Alec was immediately reminded why the clubbing scene wasn’t his cup of tea; loud music, pulsing lights and gyrating bodies dancing to the music everywhere he could see.  
When he looked around he saw Izzy standing on a chair in one of the alcoves, waving them over. Simon was already sitting next to her. “Great, you guys made it!’, she yelled when they reached her. Alec could tell by the enormous grin on her face, she already had her fair share of shots. Alec and Jace took a seat and Izzy left to get them some more shots.  
Jace started looking around, probably searching for someone he could take home with him. Alec saw him winking at a couple of girls, who ducked their heads blushing. That was you typical Jace, trying to get as much attention as he could. Alec was the complete opposite, trying to attract the least amount of attention possible, which was often more easily said than done when you’re as tall as he was.

Izzy returned from the bar with a couple of shot glasses and a red haired girl in tow. “Guys, look who I bumped into!”, she exclaimed. “This is Clary, I met her a couple of years back when I was studying”, she introduced the girl, “Clary, these are my brothers; Alec and Jace”. Clary smiled and gave then a shy wave. Alec nodded at her and he couldn’t help laughing when he saw how Jace almost bend over backwards to help her sit down in one of the chairs surrounding their table. “So, what did you study?”, Jace asked her. “I studied Art History, I work in a gallery now”, Clary answered. “What do you do?”, she asked. “Me and Alec are both cops, homicide”, Jace answered proudly. Alec could tell Jace was really trying to impress this Clary girl. Alec had never really see him try this hard with a girl, usually if they didn’t immediately fall for his charms he’d move on to someone new. “You know, one of my best friends is also a homicide cop. He just transferred from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In fact, I’m meeting him here for drinks to celebrate his new job”, Clary told Jace while she checked her phone. “Oh there he is right now! Magnus!”, she yelled.  
Alec’s head snapped up so fast he thought he’d end up with whiplash. “Biscuit!”, he heard someone exclaim. Next to his table stood Magnus Bane and if he had been dressed extravagantly at the precinct, right now he looked like sex on legs.

Alec let his eyes roam over him, noticing the black leather ankle boots adorned with silver chains and the skin tight black skinny jeans that hugged his legs and hips in all the right places. They were ripped on his knees and thighs, showing off slivers of his caramel colored skin. On top he wore a maroon silk shirt that was unbuttoned almost all the way down, exposing a large portion of his chest and, to Alec’s horror and joy, a perfect six pack of abs. He had several long necklaces hanging down to his belt buckle, accentuating the glitter he had put on his chest. His look was finished off by perfectly applied make-up around his eyes (maroon to match his shirt) and perfectly styled hair. Alec felt his mouth go dry and to his embarrassment felt his pants grow a little tighter. His mind wandered to all the things he would like to do to Magnus right about now.  
He felt the typical blush creep up his face and he quickly turned his attention somewhere else to avoid being caught staring.

“Alexander!”, Magnus exclaimed when he noticed Alec. “I didn’t know you knew my biscuit”.  
Alec felt a rush of heat sweep through him when Magnus used his full name. “Uh, I didn’t. She’s um, a friend of my sister’s”, Alec stuttered, while pointing awkwardly at Isabelle.  
“Hi, I’m Izzy”, she introduced herself with a flourish while she looked at Alec with a meaning look. “Magnus Bane, the pleasure is all mine.”, Magnus said while he kissed Isabelle’s hand. “I thought Alexander here was the pretty one, but now I’ve met you I must say you Lightwoods certainly hit the jackpot when it comes to looks”, he added with a wink.  
“Oh, I didn’t know you knew _Alexander _”, Izzy said with a smirk directed at Alec.__  
“Oh yeah, we’ve been partnered up today”, Magnus said while he knocked back one of the shots on the table.  
“Really Alec, you have a new partner and you didn’t tell me? Especially when it’s one that is this, what should I call it, exciting?”, Izzy asked with a sweet smile.  
Alec felt himself blush even harder. “I was going to tell you”, he muttered. If he had been uncomfortable in the club before, right now he really wished he had told Jace and Izzy to go clubbing alone so he could spent a quiet evening at home. Jace was talking to Clary and by the way they were looking at each other, Alec could already tell they were really into each other. Isabelle was talking to Magnus and occasionally shot him a knowing look when she caught him looking at Magnus longer than was socially acceptable. Great. To cope with his growing discomfort and to have something to do with his hands, Alec knocked back a couple of shots.  
He probably imagined it, but he really thought he saw Magnus checking him out a couple of times when he thought Alec wasn’t looking.  
“I think I’m going to dance”, Izzy said, looking meaningfully at Alec and she dragged Simon along with her. Jace and Clary had already disappeared, to the dancefloor or to the bathrooms, Alec wasn’t really sure since either of them was possible with Jace.

____

Suddenly he was left alone at the table with Magnus, who had scooted over to sit right next to him. He was very aware of the fact he could feel Magnus’ body heath on his body. Blushing he ducked his head and pretended to look at the dancing people. He jumped a little when he felt Magnus’s hand over his own on the table. “You know, you didn’t tell me about yourself today when we got partnered up”, Magnus said.  
Alec felt his breath against his ear as he was leaning in closer to be heard over the load music. Alec shivered a little. “There isn’t much to tell”, he tried to discourage Magnus from asking more questions. “Nonsense, you seem like a very interesting person Alexander”, Magnus said. “But if you don’t want to talk to me, perhaps you’d be willing to dance?”, he asked while standing up. Alec saw he was holding out a hand to Alec. Alec wanted to tell Magnus that he didn’t dance, that it wasn’t a good idea to dance or do anything really with your newly appointed partner, but what came out of his mouth was “Sure, that um, that sounds like fun”. 

Alec felt really awkward at first because he didn't really know what he was supposed to be doing. He opted for swaying his body from side to side, hoping it would be in sync with the beat of the music.  
Magnus however, looked positively sinful in the way he was moving to the music. Alec couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way his hips moved or the way his upper body twisted to the music. Magnus moved a little closer to Alec. “You know, you’re not that bad of a dancer Alexander”, he said. Alec blushed and looked down at his feet. “You just need to loosen up a little bit”, Magnus added. “May I?”, he asked, looking at Alec while he held out his hands to show he was going to touch Alec.  
Alec stared wide eyed at Magnus and nodded. Magnus placed his hands on Alec’s hips to guide his movements and Alec had to really focus on not passing out. Magnus pulled his body a little closer to his own so their hips were moving together. “See, just loosen up”, he whispered in Alec’s ear.  
Alec didn’t know what to say but he tentatively put his own hands on Magnus’s hips while he looked at Magnus’s face to check if he was all right with this. Magnus just smiled at him. Alec was starting to really enjoy himself when he felt Magnus’s phone vibrating in his pants. He took a step back, motioning to Alec that he needed to take a phone call outside and left. 

Two minutes later he was back with a grim expression on his face. “What?”, Alec started asking. “We have another one”, Magnus answered. 


	4. Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec breaks down when the new victim brings up ghosts of his past. Magnus is there to console him.

###  Breaking 

Alec couldn’t stop staring at the body, even though there was nothing more he wanted than to tear his eyes away.  
He had been standing there for over five minutes and he knew he had to snap himself out of this. But he couldn’t. Out of the corners of his eyes he could see Magnus talking to him, asking him questions, growing more and more worried with every passing minute. But he couldn’t look away. 

The body on the bed, like Kyle, was a young boy. He was lying with his hands covering his chest and had a blindfold over his eyes. He was naked. He had light brown curly hair and there was a pair of glasses lying next to him. The more he looked, the more Alec could feel tears starting to prick his eyes. His breathing became faster and he could feel his heart pounding in his ears. His knees felt weak. But he still couldn’t look away.   
Every memory he had of Max passed before his eyes and he knew, of course he knew, that this boy couldn’t be Max.   
His brain tried so hard to tell his heart that Max had been gone for over three years now. But his heart only looked at the boy on the bed and saw Max.   
Alec felt as if his grief over Max all came back in one agonizing stab. His legs couldn’t hold him up any more and he slid to his knees on the floor, next to the bed.   
He had failed Max again; he hadn’t been able to save him three years ago and right now he hadn’t been able to save this kid, who looked so much like him that for Alec, Max had died again tonight.   
He had failed, like he had failed in so many things. He had failed in being a big brother for Max. He had failed at being the son his parents wanted. He had failed at being a good partner when he had let Raj die while he survived. The guilt he tried to keep at bay every day came crushing down on him.   
He knew that if he looked up at the people who were in the hotel room with him, he would see it in their eyes: failure, disappointment, repulsion. 

He felt two arms wrap around him from behind, trying to get him to stand up. He ignored them when he felt them pulling him up and away from the bed. Why were they doing that? He had to be there, he had to stay with Max.   
He heard someone scream and it was that sound that tore him from his daze, because right when he asked himself who was screaming, he realized the sound came out of his own mouth. He felt the tears streaming down his face as he started sobbing.   
The arms around his waist renewed their effort to drag him away and this time he let them. They dragged him outside of the hotel room and placed him with his back against the wall in the hallway, but the arms never left him. They hugged him tight and rubbed soothing circles in his back. He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve someone consoling him, comforting him. He needed someone to tell him it was all his fault, to place blame. He started struggling again. 

“Sshh Alec, it’s ok, it’s ok”, he heard and was surprised the voice belonged to Jace.   
He blinked up at his best friend. “Magnus called me”, Jace said when he saw the questions in Alec’s eyes. “It’s OK Alec”, he said. Alec couldn’t hear it anymore. “No Jace it’s not OK!”, he shouted back, scrambling to get to his feet. “I should have been faster, should have been smarter! I should have already gotten this guy of the streets so none of this would have happened. If I had been able to do my job properly, this kid would have still been alive!”, Alec yelled, trying to fight off a new wave of tears. Yelling actually helped him to keep his head clear.  
“Alec, you’ve got to give yourself credit. You have been working on this case for a total of one day. Of course you couldn’t have cracked the case in that time frame”, Jace tried to placate Alec. “Don’t. Jace.”, Alec said while he pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Just. Don’t”. Alec suddenly felt extremely tired and without saying another word, he turned around and walked away. He heard Jace call out for him, but he ignored him and started to jog. 

Alec jogged al the way to his apartment and by the time he reached home, the weight on his chest had lifted a little bit.   
He entered his apartment and stood in the hallway for a few minutes. He felt guilty for the way he had left things with Jace. He had come all the way to the hotel when Magnus had apparently called him. And Magnus, Alec had left him alone at a crime scene after breaking down in front of him.   
Alec decided this was something he would deal with in the morning. Putting his feelings away in some dark corner of his head was something he had perfected over the years. He headed to his bathroom to take a shower. When he was ready he changed into loose sweatpants and a black tank top. His black hair was still wet from the shower and a few drops of water were running down his temple. He was exhausted so he just crashed into his bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. 

The two following weeks Alec buried himself in his work.   
Jace tried to talk to him when he was sitting at his desk, but Alec ignored him. Izzy called him a couple of times every day, but he always told her he was busy. He checked alibi’s, interviewed parents, teachers, classmates, friends, neighbors. Anyone who had a connection to either Kyle or Jordan (as they discovered was the name of their second victim). Magnus helped of course but Alec took the bulk of the work, coming in at six in the morning and working until late at night. He even had his private murder board in his living room so he could work when he got home as well.   
He didn’t sleep very much. When he closed his eyes he saw Jordan lying on the bed again, but this time it really was Max staring back at him. Alec would wake up sweating and shivering, being unable to sleep for the rest of the night.   
  
Jace and Izzy would visit him often at the precinct to try and convince him to go out for dinner with them. They always looked at him with worried eyes and tried to get him to take some rest. He would comply, but after dinner he would be right back at his desk, trying to find connections between the two boys. Apart from the fact that they were both male and both in their early teens, he could not find any connection.   
When they got the call for victim number three (Tristan) and eventually victim number four (Tyler), Alec became more and more desperate to find the killer. 

It was on Tuesday evening when Alec was standing in front of the murder board in his living room, someone knocked at his door.   
Frowning, Alec walked over to his front door. He suspected it was probably Izzy or Jace, trying to get him to stop working, but when he opened the door he found Magnus standing in front of it.   
“Hi”, Magnus said, “Can I come in?”. Alec blinked a couple of times and opened the door wider for Magnus to step inside. “How do you know where I live?”, Alec asked him. He didn’t remember telling Magnus where he lived, let alone give him his address. “I asked Jace this afternoon”, Magnus said.   
“Why?”, he asked. He watched Magnus step inside his apartment and saw his eyes pause when he took in the murder board. The rest of Alec’s apartment was decorated very sparse. Alec wasn’t really the type for home decorating. He believed a home should be practical, so his living room only consisted of the necessary things: couch, table, chairs, TV set and a book case. Izzy had bought him a couple of frames to hang on the walls and he had a picture of himself with all his siblings hanging above the couch. Magnus turned back towards Alec and looked him up and down. “I came here Alec, because I worry about you”, Magnus said with an exasperated sigh.   
Magnus was worried about him. Alec couldn’t quite grasp that someone would be worried about him, but he felt a little flutter in his stomach when he thought about the face that it was _Magnus_ who was worried about him.   
“Why?”, he asked again. Magnus looked at him and gave him a small smile, his eyes portraying his worry. “Because you are going to kill yourself if you keep pushing yourself like that”, Magnus explained gently. He took a couple of steps closer to where Alec was standing and put a hand on his forearm. Alec looked from Magnus’s face to his hand and back. He could feel Magnus’s soft skin against his own, his palm burning into his arm.   
Magnus guided him over to his couch and pressed down on his arm until Alec sat down. Magnus sat down beside him, his hand still resting on Alec’s arm. They were turned slightly towards each other.   
Magnus kept looking gently at him, offering him a small smile when Alec looked back. Alec wasn’t used to being looked at like that and it made him break eye contact and stare at his feet.   
“When was the last time you ate?”, Magnus asked. “I had a couple of crackers before”, Alec mumbled. He was still looking at his feet. “I meant a real meal”, Magnus pushed on. Alec sighed. He couldn’t really remember the last time he ate properly. Izzy and Jace had dragged him along the previous evening but he had ended up shuffling his food around on his plate more than anything else. When Alec didn’t respond, Magnus continued. “When was the last time you slept properly?”, he asked, still keeping his hand on Alec’s arm. That was a question Alec knew the answer to. He never slept properly. It had been years since he had a good night’s sleep. Usually he would sleep better than he had been doing for the past two weeks, but still he would wake up a couple of times during the night and be up before the crack of dawn. 

Magnus stood up abruptly, causing Alec to look up at him. He walked towards Alec’s kitchen with determination and started rummaging through the cupboards.   
“Um.. What are you doing?”, Alec asked with a frown. Magnus stopped his search just long enough to poke his head out of a cupboard “I’m going to make you dinner of course”, he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Oh, no, you really don’t have to-“, Alec started stuttering but Magnus cut him off. “Alexander, I am going to cook you dinner because I’m going to make damn sure you get something substantial in your system for once. We can either argue about this while you try to convince me that I don’t have to do this and I can keep telling you I want to do this and in the end I will win and we will have lost a lot of time. Or you can just go to the bathroom, take a nice shower and change into some comfy clothes, while I try to gather some ingredients to cook us something resembling a healthy meal.” Magnus looked at him with his eyebrows raised and a confident smirk. Alec debated with himself but in the end he was just to tired to argue, so he turned around and headed for the bathroom. “Good boy”, Magnus told him. Before he closed the door he could hear Magnus mutter “Seriously, when was the last time you went grocery shopping? What in the hell am I supposed to make with baking soda, an onion and a box of sugar?”. Alec smiled a little bit when he heard that and closed the door. 

He didn’t want to admit it to Magnus, but the shower really helped him relax a little bit. He wasn’t fully relaxed because he knew Magnus would be in his apartment when he got out of the shower. He didn’t know what to do with that since he and Magnus had been sending each other all kinds of signals over the past couple of weeks. Alec hadn’t really been in it the past two weeks, but Magnus had been shamelessly flirting with him every opportunity he got. And then there was the club, the night they got the call about the second murder, where they had danced together. Alec was sure there had been something there between them. And now Magnus was in his kitchen cooking him dinner. Quenching his growing panic, Alec focused on the tasks he had at hand and methodically washed his hair and his body. After that he dried himself off and changed into his most baggy sweatpants and a large hoody with holes all down the fringe. It was old, but it was very comfortable so Alec didn’t want to throw it away no matter how many times Izzy complained about it. 

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he looked around to see where Magnus was. He saw him standing in his kitchen stirring something on the stove. He tentatively walked over and stopped about a foot away from the kitchen island. “Feeling better?”, Magnus asked when he saw him approaching. Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, Alec just nodded while he poked at a hole in his hoody. “I managed to find something edible in your kitchen”, Magnus said with a smile, “but I should advise you to go grocery shopping sometime soon”. Alec nodded again. “Alexander, you don’t have to be ashamed or anything in front of me, you know”, Magnus said gently. “I understand, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to lose yourself in a case in such a way you completely forget to take care of yourself. That’s why you have people in your life who can look out for you.”, he added. People who look out for you. Alec repeated the words in his head and he scoffed. For as long as he could remember, there never were people who looked out for him. Sure, he had Jace and Izzy, but with them it was mostly the other way around and he had to look out for them. Ever since they were old enough to get into trouble, Alec had been the one to help them. Whether it was in school to get them out of detention, or later when they were old enough to cause real problems and he had actually had to bail out Jace for real after a drunken night. But there never really was anyone looking out for Alec.   
  
Magnus seemed to know this, since his expression became even more compassionate. “There should always be someone there for you Alec, you deserve it”, he said. Feeling Alec didn’t want to talk more about it, he turned around again and started stirring in the pot again. 

It turned out Magnus had managed to find something other than baking soda in Alec’s kitchen and had whipped up some macaroni and cheese. He claimed it was exactly what Alec was needing since it was the uber comfort food. During the meal, Alec felt himself loosen up more and talked with Magnus about everything that didn’t relate to the case. He learned more about Magnus; about his past in Brooklynn, about his parents and about his cat. Alec had laughed when Magnus had told him his cat’s name was Chairman Meow. Alec, to his own surprise, had also shared quit a lot of information about himself. He talked about Izzy and Jace and how much he loved them. He also told Magnus a little bit about the complicated relationship with his parents, which up until now he hadn’t discussed with anyone besides Izzy and Jace. 

When they were done eating, Alec felt relaxed for the first time in two weeks. He felt a warm feeling inside his stomach as he watched Magnus walk around his kitchen, cleaning up. It had a real domestic feeling to it and to his surprise Alec liked it. Magnus finished in the kitchen and turned around to face Alec. “Now, I was going to suggest watching a movie or something, but you look like you’re going to fall asleep any minute now, so perhaps it’s better for you to go to bed”, Magnus said. Alec’s face fell a little because he knew that when he got into bed and Magnus left, everything would come rushing back to him. Magnus seemed to sense this. “If you’d like I could stay and sleep on the couch”, he said cautiously. Alec blushed but he really was too tired and maybe it would help if Magnus stayed in his apartment, so he just nodded. Magnus smiled at him.  
He headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed and he handed a pair of his old sweats and a tank top to Magnus. “If you’re, you know, uncomfortable on the couch, you can always take my bed. It’s no problem for me to sleep on the couch”, Alec said. Magnus looked him up and down before he looked at the couch. “Darling I’m fine on the couch. Besides we would have to cut you in half to make your tall legs fit on that couch”, he said winking. Alec blushed and after saying goodnight he headed into his bedroom. 

Alec knew he was dreaming but he couldn’t wake himself up. He was running down a hallway with doors coming out onto it. He could hear someone screaming up ahead and he tried to run faster, but his legs wouldn’t obey. When he finally reached the door where the screaming was the loudest, he kicked open the door. Behind the door was a room with a bed. On the bed he could see someone lying on their back, so he ran over to the bed. He looked down and saw Max lying there with a knife sticking out of his chest, blood pouring from the wound. Max was staring up at Alec. “Where were you when I needed you Alec?”, he whispered while clutching the knife. Alec wanted to move, to comfort Max but he couldn’t. His body was frozen and all he could do was watch Max take his last breath. Tears were streaming down his face and he cried out for Max to wake up, to stay with him.   
  
Suddenly he woke up with a start when he felt two hands shaking him and someone calling his name. He blinked his eyes open to see Magnus sitting on the bed next to him, hair sticking out everywhere, dressed in the sweatpants and tank top Alec had given him. He looked really worried. “Are you ok?”, he whispered to Alec, “you were screaming in your sleep, I – I didn’t know what to do, is this ok?”, he stammered. Alec nodded. “Yeah. Yeah it’s ok, just a – a nightmare”, he said. He shivered when he thought back to his dream. “Do you want to talk about it?”, Magnus asked gently. Alec shook his head. “Do you want to go back to sleep? I’ll just go back to the living room”, Magnus asked. Alec shook his head again, a single tear sliding across his cheek. Magnus swiped it away with his thumb and lay his palm against Alec’s face. Alec leaned into the touch a little bit and closed his eyes. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”, Magnus whispered. Alec opened his eyes and looked into Magnus’s eyes, He felt comforted by what he saw there and he nodded. “Okay”, Magnus smiled. He crawled next to Alec and made him lie down next to him before tugging the blankets over them. He carefully hugged Alec closer to him, Alec’s back against his chest, and pressed a kiss in his hair. “Just try to sleep, I’ll be here with you”, he whispered to Alec.   
And with a feeling of safety that he had never felt before, Alec managed to drift back to sleep.


	5. Author's note

Hi everyone,

So this is not a new chapter... I wanted to inform you guys that I will put this work and my other work in progress (Brick By Brick) on hold temporarily. Three weeks ago my computer crashed with all of my idead for these fics on them, alongside a couple of finished chapters. Right now I don't really feel like rewriting everything, so I don't know when a new chapter will be posted on these works.  
I have some new idead for new fics so I'll probably upload something new soon.

On more happy news, at the end of November I gave birth to a cutie little babygirl :)


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